Have we all become well versed in the daily routine of life in the lockdown?
ET Prime
Dear Balbir Singh Sooch,
Have we all become well versed in the daily routine of life in the lockdown?
I cannot answer that for certain, but what I can say is that we at ET Prime have become well versed in examining the impact of the defining story of our lives. For the past few weeks, we’ve been closely tracking the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on various sectors, and this week, we looked at the payments ecosystem, airlines, supply chain, and the logistics industry. We also argued why a big, swift stimulus is the need of the hour. 
To make all that reporting happen, there is one technology we turned to quite a bit — videoconferencing.
The sheer pace with which videoconferencing software has become central to our working lives has been worrying many CISOs, and they already have enough to worry about. 
A couple of days back I was talking to someone — let’s call him Mr Phillip Price (Mr Robot reference, anyone?).
This Mr Price sits way up the Indian government’s cybersecurity ladder.
The times are such that every call revolves around the virus, so the call obviously went in that direction.
As Mr Price is someone who India’s top CISO’s often connect with, I asked him what the WFH revolution meant for the job of the average CISO.
He recalled a conversation he had with the CFO of a small ITES firm.
He said that companies have realised that WFH can actually work for their bottom line, even accounting for the loss of productivity. The CFO, he said, has observed an 85% productivity. That may not seem optimal, but there was also a huge cost saving, to the tune of INR80,000 per day for this firm.
Reason: no buses going out to ferry employees, no AC, no coffee, no electricity … you get the drift.
Mr Price thinks CFOs have tasted blood and would be relishing the chance to continue the savings even after the lockdown, even if it is at 50% of the current savings.
On the anvil are smaller office spaces, lesser commuting time, and certainly less time spent at the water cooler. The loss in productivity can be made up by a reduction in costs, or so the thinking goes. This is for a smaller ITES firm. Just think about the savings possible if you’re a behemoth.
There is only one person who would be unhappy with the whole thing.
That, of course, is the CISO, says Mr Price.
Imagine the sheer amount of work hurtling towards those sporting that designation on their door!
Already, thanks to issues around Zoom, they’re swamped with questions like which videoconferencing software they should choose from the likes of Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, WebEx, Zoom, Jitsi, and more.
This Saturday newsletter from ET Prime will look to ease their work a little by pointing you to some great work done by the Freedom of Press Foundation (FPF) to answer that very question.
Martin Shelton, principal researcher at the FPF, has a wonderfully informative post on their website on choosing the right videoconferencing tool. While he has written it from the point of view of finding the right tool for journalists, similar principles apply across every single profession.
According to Shelton, the four questions you should ask before deciding on a videoconferencing tool are:
    Does it support end-to-end encryption?
    Is there support for self-hosting?
    Do you need an account to join meetings?
    How many people can join the meeting?
As simple as that.
Based on these parameters, Shelton has come up with a grid that lists the many players in this segment, with you being able to choose a product based on what works for you.